Are We There Yet?

There is a finite amount of patience in the world, and the 2005 Ice Cube comedy Are We There Yet? tries all of them. If the characters in the movie actually listened to Ice Cube when he said, “No sassin’ me!” I doubt there would be much movie left. Ice Cube as Sports Memorabilia shop owner is quite the interesting turn for him, though the I suppose the stars were ostensibily supposed to be the two monsters cast as Brother and Sister. In a world where Juice isn’t Food, because it’s Juice, how is Ice Cube supposed to survive these two Grade Double-Uranium Retards.

The younger monster seems to have a higher-than-usual propensity for peeing, almost always during inopportune times. Were it that Ernest Hemingway and Ed Poe had as skillful the prose ability as the screenwriters in setting up the central conflict of a movie.

Of course, any movie where Ice Cube is referred to as “the … nasty bad man” by children is pretty funny… um… the 10-year-old chick just stole the truck. Man, why Ice Cube didn’t just hollow out their skulls with an AR-15 is beyond me. NWA-era Ice Cube wouldn’t take some chick stealing his Navigator while a honky woodsman sat on the sideline jeering. He’d be more likely to make a song about killing all the white folk in Oregoon and then fucking a ho. Instead, we get the most exciting chase scene involving a lumber pile since Return of the Jedi.

Oh yeah, his dashboard-based bobble-head doll talks to him.

…aaaaaand right cue an Amish joke. Perfect.

Several times in the movie the kids had an honest-to-god chance of dying and yet it didn’t seem to faze them. Did they have a death wish or were they so colossally stupid that they didn’t realize? One of the Great Mysteries of the Universe, I’m sure. Now, startng out watching this movie I thought it was some semblence of a non-wacky movie, but right now? As Ice Cube answers his cell phone while chasing a train on horseback? Umm, yeah, I think we’re firmly into fantasyland.